After seeing so many people disagree, I just wanted to say I agree with the OP. Those who were here in 2011 saw a quick bust of a bubble. That is not the time-scale it usually happens on, and it already dealt quite some damage. A long bust of a speculative mania can be quite destructive.
But if it is about ideology, there's not much reason to be distressed by this. Bitcoin is just a tool, replaceable and one of many potential solutions. If it really is superior, it will survive anyway. If not, chances are it wasn't fit for the job in the first place. Time will tell, but one way or another, it is just one of many battles against insane financial policy. And Bitcoin alone can't win that war anyway.
Also, sane policies would render Bitcoin entirely redundant. Value can be stored in gold and cheaply transferred via banking -- at a better computational order than Bitcoin offers. If the efficient combination of the two classic methods weren't suppressed, Bitcoin could hardly compete.
So don't fret; let's enjoy the show and be curious how it turns out in the end.
Ya'll better listen to this man. Vandroiy is a legend, he won a 5,000 BTC bet that pirate would go bust. FYI.
...but this ridiculous price bubble will destroy Bitcoin and probably all other cryptocurrencies when it pops. For 99.99% of the Bitcoin community this is irrelevant as you are involved purely to profit, you have no ideological interest in the underlying concept, but for those who are genuinely interested in alternative currency models it's a pending disaster.
Wait, so your argument is only relevent to 0.001% of the bitcoin community, and yet its also a pending disaster? There's a contradiction in your logic..
You presume that the true "underlying concept" is a "genuine alternative currency model". I deduce that bitcoin's killer app is as a speculative investment vehicle (offshore tax-free) for gambling on price fluctuations.
If Bitcoin is to be a real currency its relative value to that which it seeks to supplant is irrelevant. The way for its value to grow is by providing value by becoming a ubiquitous medium of exchange. Indeed, that was the plan initially, then somewhere along the way that idea was ditched and the speculators moved in.
There was never a coherent plan initially. Gavin was the main guy promoting bitcoin as a payments currency and solution for merchants, pooh-poohing "buy low sell high". But the market has clearly chosen bitcoin based on a quite different value proposition.
Good post, I pretty much agree.
